


Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

by Anonymous



Category: IT (1990), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Benverly and Hanbrough If You Squint, Coming Out, Everybody Lives, Fix-It, Flashbacks, I am cherry picking the various canons and playing fast and loose, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Other Losers and Relationships Are More Minor, Stan Uris: Reluctant Psychic, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-10-28 22:58:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20786447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Just like that, something terrible is behind them all-- behind Derry.Richie isn't sure anything happens 'just like that', actually. It seems like there's still a heavy struggle ahead. One with no predictions he can make or promises he can be given.





	1. Things We'd Never Do Again

“It’s going to be hours before we know anything. Hours before he’s out of surgery.” Ben reasons, his hand a warm and reassuring weight on Richie’s shoulder. “Enough time to go and get a shower, at least-- come on, there’s no way the doctors are going to let you see him smelling like a sewer.”

“I don’t give a fuck about the doctors.” Richie snorts, and he can _ feel _ Ben tense beside him, before he turns a weary smile his way. “Can you imagine the fit Eddie would pitch if I came anywhere near him like this? They-- they’ll clean him all up and then I’ll come get germs all over his room…”

“I thought you were going to fight me on that.” He chuckles weakly, pulling Richie in for a hug. “Come on.”

They take turns getting cleaned up, and Richie makes sure he’s one of the first so that he can be right back in the waiting room-- he declines the offer of eating something while he’s out. He can eat at the hospital, when he’s actually hungry. He just wants to be there.

_ The phone call was where it all started, everything beginning to trickle back in and fill the hole in his memory. Mike’s voice-- different, an adult voice, a very deep, smooth adult voice, but Mikey just the same, and then he’d remembered everyone, he’d remembered so much and it shouldn’t have affected him, except it did. Except he walked into the room and saw Eddie again and it could have been twenty seven years ago. _

_ He’d still loved them all, of course, he’d loved them in the strong and furious way a child loves, with gnashing teeth and no room for doubt. The child in him would have marched into It’s lair for them, it was the adult that didn’t want to, that couldn’t, and maybe if it hadn’t been for Eddie, and if it hadn’t been for Stan, he couldn’t have, but he had. _

He watches the water swirl down the drain in soft-focus, the suds sluicing off his body grey and pink, and he doesn’t like to think about it but he just keeps watching it, just keeps scrubbing at himself waiting for it to rinse clear. The grey is disturbing enough in its own right, but it’s the pink that sours his stomach. Eddie’s blood, and it had been so _ dark_, he’d been covered in so much of it… and it was almost…

_ Eddie… Eddie had come to his room, after that disastrous first dinner. They’d sat on the bed, rapidly sobering, wanting badly not to be sober, and Eddie… Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. It had been like a dream, if not like the best dreams, the way they fell into confiding in each other, and Richie couldn’t make his own secret come out then, but Eddie had talked about his marriage, talked about why he had to leave it, accepted the honest apology for having touched a raw nerve. _

_ “She’s… she’s not a bad person.” He’d said, though Richie had doubted that, something in the set of Eddie’s shoulders made him doubt that. “But she’s bad for me. She really is.” _

_ “Hey, you don’t have to explain it to me, man. Marriage… it’s kind of… terrible, anyway. Or-- I mean, I never-- I could never… you know? I could never find anyone I could… Maybe it’s this town, and how we all had to forget everything important. Walking around without half your life, it’s… I could just never connect to anyone. Like there was… a part of me, that no one could understand, and even I couldn’t understand it, so how could I ever find someone? How could I ever make that work when I-- Fuck.” He scrubbed a hand over his face then, and felt Eddie’s grip close around his wrist, firm and gentle and present. “Fuck.” _

_ “Yeah, ‘fuck’ just about sums it up.” _

_ “I’d offer you a couch to sleep on, but I’m kind of out of your neighborhood, I think.” _

_ “You kidding? That’s kind of an enticement. I don’t… I don’t want to go back to New York. I don’t want to see my wife again. I don’t want to feel… any of the things I felt with her. I can’t. Is that crazy? I can face this fucking demon clown but I draw the line at my wife?” _

_ “It’s not crazy, but it sounds a hell of a lot like she’s a bad person if you can’t even be in the same city.” _

_ “I can’t call her a bad person. Rich… I met Myra when my mother was dying.” _

_ “Wait, shit, your mom--? _ Fuck_, dude, if I’d known-- oh, shit, I’m an asshole.” _

_ “Yeah, I’m aware. You didn’t know, man.” _

_ “Still. Uncool. If you want to kick my ass for that--” _

_ “I don’t.” Eddie’d cut him off, half sharp and half sweet, with a wary, lopsided smile. “The thing is… I married a woman who’s basically my mother all over again And if I call her a bad person, then I have to-- And it’s not like I don’t know, okay? But I can’t just _ say _ it like that. Like, she could have been a hell of a lot worse.” _

_ “A ringing endorsement. Sorry. Sorry, I’m trying. I’ll be serious.” _

_ “Not too serious.” And Eddie had _ looked _ at him then and he hadn’t known what to make of it. “Just serious enough. You know, um… shit. Like, do you know what FDIA is?” _

_ “Is that some kind of government agency? Type of loan? I peaked in middle school, man, I don’t know a lot of these serious adult things.” _

_ “You did not peak in middle school.” He rolled his eyes and elbowed Richie in the ribs. “Based on what I’m starting to remember, you definitely didn’t peak in middle school. No-- um, it’s-- Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another? Munchausen’s by proxy.” _

_ “ _ Shit_. Yeah, no, I-- I remember, your mom had you take all those pills. You never even had asthma.” _

_ “She wasn’t-- she wasn’t, like… poisoning me before doctor’s appointments or anything, just… it just worked out that my anxiety had all these physical symptoms she could use to… you know, talk about how I was short of breath, or I was dizzy or feverish or… It could have been a lot worse. The thing is… the thing is, when she took me out of this town and I forgot everything… I forgot, that I knew I wasn’t sick. And when she started up again, I… I didn’t have any reason to fight her on it, I didn’t remember, and she was all I had, and then… And then I believed it. My whole adult life I was just back to _ believing _ it, and Myra… I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, she never had to do shit to make me think I was sick, because I was… fucking brainwashed. But when I look at it all now with a clear head, I-- the version of me that she wanted isn’t real and I don’t want to go back to being him. I don’t want to be weak just to be loved, I don’t want to share a bed with someone I can’t stand to be touched by.” _

Richie tilts his head back, mouth open, and wonders if he’ll ever rinse the taste of Eddie’s blood away completely. When he’ll feel clean. When, if ever, he’ll stop seeing that awful scene when he closes his eyes. If he focuses on something else, he’s mostly safe, but even in his better memories, he keeps seeing flashes of Eddie, the blood, his arm… 

_ Eddie, yanked away, hideous claw slicing through the air, Richie scrambling out of the way and finding him, finding him, Stan struggling not to panic… Richie had ripped his jacket off to try and staunch the flow of blood, desperate, stupid, panicking himself. _

_ The two of them had dragged Eddie into hiding before Stan had pulled off his belt to try and form a tourniquet. If he hadn’t grabbed Eddie when he did, it wouldn’t be his arm, it would be his heart, and it had been all Richie could do to keep his stomach trying to empty-- and if there had been anything on it, he might have failed anyway, Eddie in his arms, so much blood already lost, his face colorless and clammy, his breathing weak, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, so pale and his blood so dark, Eddie, pulse fluttering under Richie’s hand at his throat, desperately clinging to that sign of life. _

_ “Eds, Eds, hold on for me, come on… you’re okay, you’re okay, I’m right here, we’re right here, please-- Eds…” _

_ “Richie…” Eddie’s hand, his remaining working hand, finding Richie’s cheek, too weak to support by himself for long, and so Richie had caught it, held it in place, sobbed like a fucking baby, Eddie, Eddie… _

He’s scrubbed away the grime, washed the blood off, gotten it all out of his hair… He changes into clean clothes-- the last clean outfit he has, and he doesn’t think the one he wore down there is salvageable. Getting his glasses clean is another job, and there’s nothing he can do about the cracks. He owns backup glasses, because he can afford to, because he’s used to breaking them, but they’re not in Derry, so broken ones it is. Broken ones that used to be bloody and the blood was Eddie’s, and he stands at the bathroom sink a long moment, the water running, until Stan knocks at his door, calls his name gently.

_ After Eddie had gone to bed, after that talk, Richie couldn’t sleep. How could he have, after that? How would he ever sleep again, wondering if when Eddie said ‘I don’t want to share a bed with someone I can’t stand to be touched by’, if he meant he couldn’t stand to be touched by a woman who was abusing him, or if he couldn’t stand to be touched by a woman at all. Wondering if it was safe to tell him, to reach for him, to love him… _

_ Not that he believed it would ever be safe to do that. After so long… and Eddie could do better. Eddie could do so much better than a… weird-looking closet case whose career hinges on playing straight, not that it matters when he’s a fucking chickenshit anyway, and Eddie was definitely… _ hot_, there was nothing Richie was going to bring to the table that Eddie couldn’t get from someone better. _

_ All he really had going for him was a pathetic span of time spent devoted, and most of that time he didn’t know who he was devoted to. What did he have going for him? _

_ Stan had been the one to save him from his own thoughts then, too, finding him outside, where he’d wandered, where he’d found himself reaching for a pack of cigarettes he hadn’t carried in ages. He’d _ quit_. _

_ “Can’t sleep?” Stan asked. _

_ “How can anyone?” _

_ “Mm.” He kicked at the ground. “I’m not used to being up like this. Middle of the night. We should all be sleeping, before… everything that comes next. But I can’t.” _

_ “How bad do you think it’s going to be?” Richie had asked, turning up towards the windows. A faint light in the one he thought was Eddie’s. At first he wondered why Eddie was still up in his room, awake on his own, and then with a pang he remembered that Eddie never did like the dark much. And all the things they might have outgrown once were coming back to them here… was he sleeping with the lamp on? Was he wishing he wasn’t alone, the way he’d… he’d admitted to once, Richie remembered. Climbing in through Eddie’s window because the light was on when he came by, Eddie waking, how they’d curled up together and admitted secrets, but that had been before The Secret… _

_ “It’s going to be _ bad_.” Stan said, like it wasn’t even a guess. Well, it was a fucking educated guess, anyway. “Rich, can I tell you something?” _

_ “Yeah, man. You can tell me anything.” _

_ “I almost didn’t come.” _

_ “You would have come.” _

_ “I mean, I did come, but I wasn’t going to.” _

_ “You couldn’t have just sat home-- not-- I mean if we could have done that, I wouldn’t be here.” _

_ “I _ mean_, I almost killed myself.” Stan said, just as huffily as if he was lecturing Richie about… about something normal, about something safe, about something understandable, not like this, not like the idea of discovering Stan no longer existed. What if he had come and his best friend just _ wasn’t_, if all his memories came back in a broken circle? _

_ Richie stepped forward, pulling Stan into a hard hug, kissing the side of his head. Something he never would have dared out in a dark parking lot, even with no one around, had it been Eddie. Something he didn’t think twice about with Stan, didn’t worry about how it looked. _

_ “I’ve thought about it before.” He admitted, rocking back and forth just a little, Stan still held in his arms. “I mean not because of this. Just--” _

_ “I know.” Stan squeezed back. _

_ “What do you mean you know?” _

_ “You’re a comedian.” He pulled away at last to meet Richie’s eyes. “I had this dream, when I was finishing out my degree. Recurring nightmare. I had this dream about a stranger standing on a bridge. The sun was setting over the water and I remember I thought that was wrong. We were facing the wrong way. I had to talk him out of jumping. A week straight that was all I could dream about.” _

_ “I never got out of a car on that bridge.” Richie drew him in close again. “I thought about it. After a while I didn’t think about it so seriously. Always felt like maybe someone might have some use for me if I stayed in one piece.” _

_ “Why…?” Stan asked him, clinging on like he could disappear. _

_ “I’m a comedian.” _

_ “Rich…” _

_ “I’ll tell you later. Okay?” _

_ Stan had nodded. It had been… close enough, for that. Close as he’d come yet to telling anyone. _

They return to the hospital, no news, Ben and Bev go to clean up next, Richie thinks he should take a jab at the two of them, how cozy they seem, but he doesn’t have it in him.

They’re in a semi-private waiting room, up on the same floor as the ICU, where Eddie _ will _ be moved, once he’s out of surgery. Anyone could walk in, but for now, they’re alone. Mike and Bill are across the way, asleep on each other’s shoulders. 

“I’m gay.” Richie says, with no preamble.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“No-- I’m being serious. I’m coming out to you, man.”

Stan peers at him, takes a deep breath. “Oh.”

“Look, you’re-- If I had ever had a brother, you-- You know? If I’d ever had a brother, he couldn’t be more of one to me than you were. So I want you to know. I’ve never told anyone before.”

“Thanks, then.” Stan slings an arm around his shoulder. He doesn’t say more. He doesn’t need to.

For now, they wait.


	2. What Part of My Heart Is Beating Faster Than the Speed of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie isn't the only one sitting and waiting on somebody, and Eddie isn't the only one in the shape he's in.

Time goes weird, Richie couldn’t say how much of it passes waiting for news. The others shuffle around him but he feels so detached from them all. He sees Ben and Bev sitting side by side gripping each other’s hands and they talk to him and he talks back but he’s not sure what he says to them, or what they say to him. They leave briefly and come back with coffee, apparently he’d said no to that-- Bev passes one off to Stan and Ben hands one to Mike, who looks barely awake, Bill still cuddled against his shoulder and dead to the world. Richie leans on Stan and tries to let that ground him.

They disappear now and then, one or two at a time-- when Stan goes to eat or take a leak or stretch his legs, Richie winds up leaning against someone else a spell. 

He shoots up to his feet and nearly falls on his face when a doctor appears, and Ben’s hand around his arm keeps him upright.

“Is he--?”

“I don’t know.” The doctor holds a hand up. “He’s still in surgery, I don’t know. Were you involved in the accident at all, do you need to be checked over?”

He returns to his seat with a shake of the head. “I’ll wait.”

“Go on, Richie.” Bev touches his shoulder. 

“If there was anything wrong with me, I think I’d have noticed.”

“Rich…”

“I’ll be back.” The doctor nods, and Richie assumes he means when he has news, but he means ‘with some medical shit’, and he looks Richie over there in the little waiting room, the other Losers gathered around, facing away to allow him some privacy about it, but close enough to reach for if he had to.

He doesn’t-- the doctor just makes sure he wasn’t banged up too badly, and suggests he drink some water and get some rest. He likes the doctor, though it’s a distant impression, he can’t summon up much feeling. Only that he thinks if this man was in charge of Eddie’s post-surgery recovery, he would feel good about that. He has no opinion on his own treatment, he doesn’t need much of it. 

After that, it’s another indeterminable length of time where the others move around him, where he hears their voices indistinct as if through water, before someone else slouches into the room, and this time Richie knows. He knows because this time the figure in scrubs looks so tired that he must have been working over Eddie all this time in the OR, or maybe he knows because he’s desperate, but he meets the man’s eyes and gets a little nod in response. 

“Eddie?”

“Mister Kaspbrak is stable. Uh… who should I be…?”

“Me.” Richie insists. He doesn’t recall making the decision to move closer, to grab the man’s arm, but he has done, and the surgeon doesn’t shake him off. “Tell me-- tell me he’s okay.”

“Is there family we should contact?”

“He has a wife--” Bill starts.

“No.” Richie cuts him off, and he hates the way the weight of their stares feels. “He, uh… he was leaving her.”

“But-- at dinner--”

“He told me, that night at the inn, we had a drink. Stan, it was right before you and I talked, about… some things. Eddie’s plan was to use this trip to break away from her, it was-- it wasn’t healthy. Look, this isn’t my thing to tell, just-- I just need you not to look her up or call her, because he’ll never be able to get away if she gets him now, okay? And he-- he deserves to get away. After everything, he--”

_ Sonia Kaspbrak had been a piece of work, and Richie knew Eddie had hoped that when he confronted her over his phony medicine, that things would be better somehow. For a while, she hadn’t known what to do, and then she’d doubled down. There was nothing Eddie could do about it, he was only a kid, and there was nothing Richie could do _ for _ him, but he’d ached to. _

_ The words stung, as little as he respected Mrs. Kaspbrak’s opinion. She was still Eddie’s mother, and Eddie still loved her, even if he hated her in equal measure. Eddie knew she’d lied to him his whole life, but Riche still feared the sway she might hold, when she said things… things about him. More than any of the others, Richie was the scapegoat on whom she pinned all Eddie’s woes. _ A boy like that_. Too loud, too reckless, too capable of leading Eddie astray, leading Eddie into harm, leading Eddie straight into a stupid accident, leading Eddie to… _

_ To what? _

_ To ruin? _

_ He’d witnessed the lectures and the crocodile tears too many times, in the moments before a door would be shut in his face, Eddie on one side and him on the other. He’d gone to Eddie’s window too many times, knowing he couldn’t go to the front door. Eddie… _like a dreamer in a dungeon or an angel in a cave_\-- Richie had a notebook full of scribbled lyrics from songs he heard on the radio or on cassette tapes he hoarded, lines from this and that that made him think of Eddie, and even though he never wrote Eddie’s name there, even though there was nothing of his own feelings beyond the lyrics themselves, he’d hidden it as a careful secret, felt exposed by it. And pages at a time of the thing were sad. _

_ He wanted a car, though he wouldn’t be able to drive for a couple years yet. He wanted a car so that he could take Eddie away. No more Mrs. K telling him Richie was even more no good than any of his other friends, no more Mrs. K keeping him from his friends. No more calling him sick and weak when he was anything but. He didn’t know where they would go, just _ away_. Eddie deserved to get away. _

“Okay. Okay.” Mike pats his shoulder. “We won’t call her.”

“Right, but I need to know who his family is if we’re not contacting his wife…” The surgeon looks between them all.

“We are.” Bill steps in closer. His hand lands on Richie’s other shoulder, comforting.

“Please. Please… Eddie-- I need to see him.” Richie begs, is not too proud to beg, not when it’s Eddie. Eddie, who almost died saving his life, and he’s not worth it. 

“Mister Kaspbrak is stable now, like I said, but… we’ve had to amputate his arm. A little above the…” He indicates on his own arm. “We’re monitoring that closely for any signs of infection, I don’t know what happened, but-- He’s in a medically induced coma right now. The… shock, when he wakes up, is going to be a lot. We’ve had to pump a lot of blood back into him, and losing a limb is never easy for anyone. While he’s comatose, it gives his body the chance to heal from the severe trauma, so that he’ll be on better footing when he does wake up. I can let one of you in for now.”

“Go on, Rich.” Bill nods. “T-tell Ed-- tell Ed-Eddie, Eddie, tell him we’re all here for him.”

“I can be in Derry until he wakes up.” Bev adds. “I can work remotely.”

“So can I, for now.” Ben says.

“The world tour can wait.” Mike squeezes Richie’s shoulder. “The world will still be there.”

“I can write anywhere. Especially if Mikey’s got a couch I can sleep on, so I’m not-- not… p-paying for that room forever.”

“Mikey’s got a bed you can sleep in.” He laughs softly. “All of you, if you want to come out to my place. I can find the room.”

Stan shoulders Mike and Bill aside, wrapping his arms around Richie. “Well, I have a wife and a job who are expecting me… but the _ minute _ Eddie’s awake I want to be back here. Richie… what you told me, earlier-- own it. All right? And if there’s something… shit--” He wipes at his eyes. “If there’s something-- Take care of Eddie. Take care of yourself. And text, call-- keep me updated. I can be on another flight back the minute you need me, I’ll let work know things are… up in the air, with the emergency I told them I had to take care of, and I’ll make sure they know I’ll need to take time again to come back. I’m not bailing on you, okay?”

Richie nods, leaning into him just a moment. “I know you’re not. I know you won’t.”

“Neither of us is bailing, right?” Stan cups the back of his head, rests their foreheads together, and Richie’s stomach twists, catching his meaning. “Neither of us is even thinking about it?”

“I think… after the other thing I told you, I-- I think I won’t again. Want to-- bail on you. I think I just-- had to get through some shit. I’ll be okay.” He says, though he suspects Stan hears the _ as long as Eddie makes it _ that he doesn’t speak.

“Call me. Any time, night or day.” Stan pulls him down low enough to kiss his temple, musses his hair before letting him go. _ Paternal_, he thinks. Stan should be a dad, he thinks that, too. Now that the nightmare is dead and buried, Stan should be a dad. Richie can be a crazy fun uncle. 

“I will.” He promises, sniffling. 

The others all gather back in around him, all touch him before they let him follow the surgeon to Eddie’s room. There’s a weird power in it, he thinks, like the blood oath-- there’s something in the seven of them, the magic he believed in as a kid. It’s as real now as it ever was, it’s the seven of them. They’re sending something with him when they let him go, something strong. Something he _ has _ to believe will help Eddie.

There’s one other patient in Eddie’s room, with a single visitor, but Richie doesn’t really see them, barely notes them. Doesn’t even see them enough to realize the other patient is also missing an arm, until the surgeon says something about figuring they might both have an easier recovery knowing they aren’t alone. Even then the information seems distant and unreal, as he collapses into the chair by the bed.

The moment the surgeon is out of the room, Richie breaks down. He folds over, weeping silently, face contorting and body shaking with the force of it. His head hits the bed by Eddie’s hip, there should be a hand resting where he is and there isn’t and he shakes harder, and no sound is coming out of him even when he tries, when he mouths Eddie’s name. It feels like a herculean effort just to lift his hand to curl around Eddie’s knee, and the blanket is warm like it’s fresh out of the dryer, but it feels thin and scratchy, and Eddie…

_ “I don’t want to go back to the hospital, I hate it. Do you know how many diseases are just circulating around hospitals? If one person doesn’t wash their hands well enough, they could spread the freaking plague.” Eddie had whined. Nine years old, still censoring himself even just around the other three. Only it was just him and Richie that day, Stan was at little league try-outs and Bill was doing some family shit, and so Richie had gone over to Eddie’s house, and when his mother answered the door and said he was far too sick, Richie had gone around and climbed through his window. _

_ “You’re not going to get the plague at the hospital.” Richie said, but he let Eddie squeeze his hand so hard it felt like something might break. _

_ “Did you know, at a hospital in Boston, like, five years ago, there was a case of Legionnaires? People died! People died, Richie, they went to the hospital to get better and the air conditioning system had Legionnaires’ Disease and they died!” _

_ “Yeah but they were already sick with something else when they caught it.” _

_ “I’m sick, jerkwad!” _

_ “You don’t seem sick to me.” _

_ “Well I am. My mom wouldn’t make that stuff up out of nowhere. And-- and my stomach hurts all the time! She’s taking me to get tests… to see what’s wrong with me. I don’t wanna go.” _

_ “It’s just tests, though? They won’t keep you overnight for just tests, right?” Richie patted the hand strangling his to death. “I’ll bring you flowers when you come back from the hospital.” _

_ “Shut up.” _

He had, hadn’t he? Well, sort of. He’d reasoned that the next door neighbor wouldn’t notice if just one of their tulips went missing, and he knew Eddie wasn’t allergic to them, and he’d picked a yellow one because it made him think of Eddie somehow, and Mrs. K had _ not _ let him in to see Eddie-- though he couldn’t really argue the point when she accused him of stealing the tulip. He hadn’t realized then, what the other things she accused him of meant… it would still be a couple years before he started to understand that.

He’d held it in his teeth to be able to climb up to Eddie’s window. Eddie had put it in the water glass by his bed, tooth marks in the stem and all. 

He could buy him flowers, now. He just needs him to wake up first… whenever that might happen.

“Hey.” The other visitor says, his voice soft. Richie looks up, can’t even find it in him to feel any embarrassment over his tear-streaked face and how he must look. “It’s okay. Sheryl’s the nurse on shift and she won’t kick us out when visiting hours are over. You won’t have to leave until shift change.”

“Thanks.” Richie croaks.

“You basically can’t trust any of the other nurses, but when Doctor Morrison’s here, he’s… you know.”

“Which one is that?”

“He’s, like… Tall. Dad-aged.”

“The surgeon?”

“No-- Well, him, too, the one who brought you in, but you probably won’t see much of him. Morrison is just… like, a dad. But like, a good dad who’s nice to you and smiles a lot? He’s not from around here, which is probably why. Piece of shit town…” He turns back to look at the man he’s visiting, and Richie actually sees him for the first time, like, sees his face. 

He knows him-- or, he doesn’t know him, but he’d seen him. In one of the fucking… Pennywise nightmare vision visits, he’d seen him. He doesn’t look much better in real life than he had then, but there are bandages over everything, so… that’s something. Except… except with the bandages covering one side of his face and the bandaged not-an-arm-anymore and all the tubes, _ shit _, does he remind Richie of Eddie. 

“But it’s okay, because we’re _ not _ staying here.” The man continues, gently touching the less injured side of his face. “I don’t care where we go, but it’s going to be far away from here.”

Richie’s mouth feels too dry. He can’t swallow and he can’t breathe, and he doesn’t know what to name the feelings that swirl through him.

“Amen to that.” He manages at last. _ Amen to that_…

“Don.” He says, flashing Richie a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, though his eyes are warm. Richie gets it, he doesn’t feel like he could smile, or if he did, he knows it wouldn’t look right, would crumple sadly in on itself.

“Richie. Or-- I don’t know, maybe you know that already, I don’t know.”

“... Nope. Have we met?”

“No. We haven’t. I’ve only even been back in Derry like… not very long at all before all this shit happened. I-- um, it’s nothing. I mean, I’m-- Like, I’m famous? Not super famous, I’m just a comedian, just ‘my breakdown has gone viral’ famous. Actually, I’m pretty glad you haven’t seen that.”

“Oh. Shit, that sucks. Sorry. Should I look you up?”

“Please don’t.” He groans. “The breakdown isn’t something I’m proud of. And neither is my act. It’s, um… shitty jokes about how much I hate my girlfriend, who doesn’t exist. So… I’m not worth looking up.”

“Okay. Hey, who hasn’t had a breakdown, right?”

“Oh, nobody worth knowing.”

“What’s his name?” Don asks, and this time his smile is just a little realer. 

“Eddie.” It hurts to say his name, but not as bad as he thinks it hurts not to say it. “This is Eddie.”

“Adrian.” Don’s hand drifts to rest over Adrian’s heart. Boyfriend, Richie thinks. Or partner. He feels a weird, sick kind of envy. “Now we’re all introduced. He, um-- he looks nice.”

“He’s an _ asshole_.” Richie laughs-- it’s watery and weak and he sobs a little on it, but it loosens something up in his chest. “And he would do anything, for anyone. He’s… the best man I know. Once he likes you even a little bit, he’ll go to the ends of the earth for you, and no matter how bad you screw shit up and how much he cusses you out for it, he’ll still go to the mat. He’s… he’s loyal. And he’s brave. And he’s _ good_. And, shit, it should have been me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I-- I know that feeling.” He nods. “Adrian… it shouldn’t ever have been him, but this fucking _ town_…”

His shoulders hitch, and Richie moves his chair around to the other side of the bed, where Don already is. He takes Eddie’s hand in one of his, mindful of the IV line, and he puts his other hand on Don’s back.

“Amen to that, too.”

“All I’ve ever wanted has been to get out of this _ fucking _ town. And then… and then Adrian showed up. And I should have gone back to Portland with him when we had the chance, but he… but he didn’t see how bad this place was. I don’t think anyone does if they weren’t born here.” He scrubs at one eye. “We knew each other a week before he was packing up his life to move in with me-- in Portland he was living with like… five people, and my place wasn’t much but I only had one roommate who was never even home, so… so it made sense, and he said he could work from anyplace, and I… I never knew I could feel like this about somebody until there he was and I couldn’t imagine… I couldn’t imagine going back to the way things were. Meeting him made me less afraid. Not… not not-afraid, but less. You know?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“I wasn’t even out, and then he saw me, he _ saw _ me, and like… I don’t know if I believe in love at first sight or anything like that. I just believe it felt good to have someone see me, and smile at me, and I didn’t want to pretend with him. It could have been just that, if he was anybody else. Like… I could have had a cute guy smile at me, and smile back, and be just two people who know something about each other and then never see each other again, except… except he’s a writer. And I’m a writer, or I try to be, and he tries to be. Which mostly just means we couldn’t afford to move out of this shithole town no matter how many times I said it wasn’t safe here. And that we, like, got each other. It meant we got each other.”

“Hey, man… it’s-- I mean I don’t know if any of us are gonna be okay, but… he’s lucky he’s got you.”

“Thanks. Yours, too. How’d you meet?”

“I don’t remember. I mean, we were… like, seven. We grew up here.” _ And he’s not my boyfriend, he’s not mine_, he should say that, but he doesn’t. “I wish I remember how we met. I remember when we became friends, a little. I remember… enough, I think. And then… he moved away, I moved away, and now we’re back here again and… and it is what it is, I guess. I don’t think I believe in love at first sight, but I believe there are people you don’t get over. And when you see them again, you feel everything you felt. And it’s a little like that, I guess. First time seeing him all grown up. But it’s… it’s seeing him like this and remembering how he was and how we were.”

It’s as close as he’s come to saying he’s in love with Eddie. Not that Stan doesn’t know anyway, and maybe even though he hasn’t come out to the others yet, they know, too. But he’s working out saying things a little at a time. 

“I’m so scared.” Don whispers. “Scared he won’t wake up. Scared even if he does-- Scared.”

“Me, too. I was scared to come back to this town at all, to be fair. Part of me wishes I hadn’t, and then...And then I’m glad I did, because I don’t-- Because I’d rather be fucking miserable for the rest of my life because I remember him and because I know every awful thing that happened, than sleepwalk through it not knowing where and how and who he is.”

Don nods, and they both fall silent, both lose themselves in their individual contemplations, until the nurse-- Sheryl-- comes in to let them know the shift is changing and they need to be gone before they get caught visiting outside of hours. 

“Buy you a coffee? One sad guy sitting around a hospital to another?” Richie offers. Watches Don hesitate a moment and then nod, grateful. 

“Or just a coke. I don’t think I trust hospital coffee… But-- yeah. One sad guy sitting around a hospital to another.”

There’s a coffee cart and a vending machine near the gift shop, which is more convenient than going all the way to the cafeteria. Don tells Richie about Adrian’s pile of half-written novels, Richie tells him a story about Eddie’s unerring ability to find his way through the woods, how they could just _ go _ without marking a trail and Eddie could take them back home again. As much as he thinks they’d rather both be back in that room straight through until Eddie and Adrian both wake up, rather sleep sitting in those uncomfortable chairs than leave for a minute, walking feels pretty good. His back aches, his knees ache, his arms ache, his head aches, and staying put wouldn’t do him any favors.

Don winds up just walking with him, after, just to keep talking, and when they get to the little closed-off waiting room off the ICU, Richie sees Bill and Mike and Bev and Ben, lined up like that in a row of chairs all holding hands. They rise like a wave when they spot him, and at his elbow, Don lets out a breathy little ‘holy shit’.

“Hey-- um, everyone, this is Eddie’s roommate’s boyfriend, they, uh, they kicked us both out, so. Everyone, Don, Don, Everyone. This is--”

“Bill Denbrough.” He says, his hands up over his face as he tries to breathe.

“Oh, him you know. And this is--”

“We know each other.” Mike nods. “I do still live in Derry, Rich, I know people here. Hey, Don. Sorry to hear about Adrian.”

“You didn’t tell me you know Bill Denbrough.” Don levels this accusation at Mike, though as accusations go, it’s a little breathless and fluttery.

“He doesn’t like to brag.” Bill smiles and offers his hand. 

“How’s Eddie?” Ben asks.

“Stable. Stable. Um… He’s just-- you know. He’ll be, the coma. Shit, you guys, he looks-- he’s so _ still_, I’ve never seen Eddie still before. Even in his _ sleep_. He’s pretty pale. They fixed his face up while they were working on him, so… I mean, I don’t know. He’s alive. Um-- and-- sorry, and that’s Ben Hanscom, and Beverly Marsh. Ben, Bev, Don. They put us in the same, um, they put Eddie in Adrian’s room because they both lost an arm so… Bonding experience.”

“That’s… some coincidence.” Bev says. 

Don shakes hands with Ben and Bev both as well, though not for quite as long as he had Bill, and not with quite so starry-eyed a look. 

“Well, I think I’ve got you beat for a freaky story about how it happened.” He sniffs.

“Sure, if you think you can beat a killer clown from outer space.” Richie says, before he can stop himself. He’s not sure how he would have expected Don to react to that, if he had thought about it at all, but he knows he would never have expected the look that crosses his face, or the way Mike needs to keep him from hitting the floor.

“You, too?” He breathes the words out. “You’ve seen it?”

“Seen It.” Richie’s own breaths seem to come a little harder, and he squares his shoulders and tries to make himself feel surer than he is. “Killed It.”

  
“_Good_.”


End file.
